Simple Summary: Pork quality has become an important parameter in the industry. Traditional pork quality was assessed postmortem. It is considered that the determination of meat quality in live pigs is beneficial in order to obtain better pork quality and to reduce cost in production. In the present study, myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoforms in both of the pre-and postmortem longissimus thoracis muscle were evaluated as novel parameters for meat quality estimation in pork by correlation and clustering analysis. MHC isoforms in live pigs could be applied in a practical and useful method to predict meat quality in pork.Abstract: Estimating meat quality prior to slaughter will be beneficial for the rapid identification of specific traits or poor quality pork compared to a conventional assessment at postmortem. In this study, we identified and quantified myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoforms from a biopsied longissimus thoracis muscle of pigs, and determined their correlation with postmortem muscle fiber characteristics and meat quality. MHC slow and fast isoforms proportions from biopsied samples correlated with postmortem percentage of type I and type IIB muscle fibers, respectively (p < 0.05). The percentage of the biopsied MHC slow isoform showed a positive correlation with pH at 45 min postmortem, and negative correlations with filter-paper fluid uptake and drip loss in pork (p < 0.05). Furthermore, clustering the pigs into three groups based on the biopsied MHC isoform proportions was not only significantly associated with muscle fiber number and proportions of muscle fiber area, but also correlated with pH at 45 min postmortem and the National Pork Producers Council color score (p < 0.05). Collectively, our findings indicate that the biopsied MHC isoforms serve as parameter for estimating meat quality, with the association between the higher proportion of MHC slow isoforms and pH at 45 min postmortem in particular being indicative of better pork quality.
This study aimed to identify the influence of sow parity on the meat quality of progeny. A total of 656 progeny from 196 sows were categorised into three different groups based on parity: stage 1 (gilt), 2 (second to fourth parities), and 3 (over fifth parity). According to the significant differences between the parity stage groups in the multiple meat quality properties (P < 0.05), the parity stage 1 had higher muscle pH and lower drip loss in meat quality traits and showed smaller area composition of type IIb muscle fibres in muscle fibre characteristics than the other older groups. Moreover, the parity stage 1 group had significantly higher springiness, adhesiveness and chewiness (P < 0.001), whereas the stage 3 group showed relatively lower cohesiveness (P < 0.05) in the meat texture properties. The principal component analysis displayed more distance between stage 1 and other two groups than the distance between stage 2 and 3. Therefore, we suggest that maternal parity may affect pork quality in progeny and the younger stage group could have better meat quality than the older group.
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